Lightning in the Sheets
by claraowl
Summary: In which Ren and Nora finish moving into their first apartment together, explore the fluffy mishaps of unpacking, and reach a conclusion that has been a long time coming. Renora goodness filled with fluff and lemon (smut) alike.


**Forgot to put this in the first time! I don't own anything you see here (my friend Eileen is to blame for the chex mix and marshmallow comments), nor have I actually experienced any of it, so go easy on me. This fic is dedicated to my friend interdimensional-meatpie as thanks for the felt Ren and Nora he made me! And also many thanks to him and my senpais for helping me with this!**

All in all, it had not been a bad day for Ren, even if it had started out with an unintentional insult to his cooking skills from the person for whom he had learned them. He and Nora had just sat down for their first breakfast in their new studio apartment - pancakes, of course - when it happened. Nora, having taken a bite of her stack (see: shoved an entire pancake in her mouth), inquired something of him.

"Did you change your recipe, Ren? The pancakes taste… different."

He glanced up at her from his morning tea. "Different how?"

"Like," she hesitated, taking the opportunity to take a normal bite of the next one on her stack, "like they're not as good as they usually are. Did you run out of something?"

"No…" he set down his mug, furrowing his brow. _They're exactly the same… does she just not like my pancakes anymore?_

"I mean, they're still good, of course - just not like usual, more like what the cooks at Beacon made! Maybe it's just the new stove?"

 _Like the cooks at Beacon? But their pancakes are burnt and dry, nothing like mine._ His grip on his tea tightened, a movement that his girlfriend did not miss.

"It's just the stove, Renny - I mean, we just moved in last night! I'm sure they'll taste just as good as always in no time!" She beamed at him before dousing her pancakes in more than the usual amount of syrup, and finished them off quickly.

He raised an eyebrow as he took a bite of pancake, unable to detect a difference as a piece crumbled off and onto his _Maybe do something to the cook_ apron. "You seem to be eating them alright."

"Well, yeah! You made them for me, so they're good no matter what!" She raised a hand to her lips and attempted to blow him a syrupy kiss, but only succeeded in getting her fingers stuck to her lips. "Mrph."

Sighing, Ren leaned across the table and unstuck her, wondering as he did so why she didn't like his pancakes anymore… they were, after all, exactly the same.

Once they had finished breakfast, Nora stretched and looked around at the boxes stacked around the apartment - most of them full of gifts from their teammates' parents, who had taken to doting on the pair of them after learning their story. As such, the one-room apartment was littered with the cardboard cubes, and the pair had quickly lost track of what was in which box.

"Any idea which box has the dish soap?"

In lieu of a verbal answer, Ren nodded over towards the sink. "We unpacked it yesterday, after we did the laundry, remember?"

"Right! I forgot we got a bit of it done before passing out. That should make our day a bit easier - though I think we should be able to get the rest of it done today, because it's the two of us, right? With all the Grimm we fight, a pile of boxes should be easy!" Having said this, she stabbed her fork into the air.

"Dishes first?"

Nora bounced to her feet and flounced over to the sink to fill it with soapy water. "Dibs on washing! You get to figure out how to jigsaw the stuff into the cupboards."

"It's hardly jigsawing when we have a total of four plates, not including paper ones."

"Well, we'll just have to change that eventually! Maybe we could buy plates as souvenirs from different places that we visit! We could have a super-awesome mix-and-match set that tell the tale of our adventures!" As she spoke, she squirted more and more dishwashing liquid into the water, causing bubbles to slowly froth upwards. "Ooh, and that way we could have story night whenever we eat! Or when we have people over and have to use more plates! Though I guess we'd need more silverware, too… do they sell place-specific silverware?"

"I'm sure it exists somewhere," Ren replied, tugging the dish soap out of her hand before the bubbles could spill over the edge of the sink and tossing her a sponge. "We'll have to check."

"An excellent plan!" she declared, fetching the breakfast dishes and pan and plopping them all in the soapy liquid, causing a few bubbles to fly out. Giggling at this, she continued, "Maybe we could tell the others too, so they all start doing it - and then we can have a giant feast for all of us with loads of story plates!" She scrubbed the first plate clean and passed it off to Ren, who dried it off and stored it in a cupboard, before starting on the next. Her gaze skipped sideways and caught Ren's fond smile as he watched her, waiting for the next item to dry. His smile turned to a puff of laughter when he saw the blush paint her cheeks. "Cut it out, Ren…."

"And what, pray tell, was I doing?"

"You were laughing at me! And while I was scrubbing the syrup off my plate, no less!"

"I was not laughing. I just had too much air in my nose." He took the now-clean plate from her hands and dried it off, sticking it in the cupboard while she stuck out her bottom lip.

"Meanie," she pouted, sticking out her tongue and smacking her hands back into the suds.

"You were the one who said my pancakes tasted like the school's…" he muttered, opening a different cupboard to await the arrival of the frying pan. Nora, however, did not hear him, as she was currently enthralled by the bubbles, which, despite Ren taking away the dish soap some time ago, had only continued to froth upwards.

"It's like there's a whole town of bubbles!" she exclaimed, dropping all pretense of pouting and scooping up two handfuls of suds. "Bubba Bubba," she bounced one handful, "meet Bubba Bubba," the other repeated the action, "from Bubba Bubba Town!"

 _Splat._

Ren wiped suds off of his apron, sighing only a little bit. Nora, who had of course gotten a faceful of suds from when she clapped the two Bubba Bubbas together to introduce them, was shaking her head like a wet Zwei. When she finished and grinned up at him, Ren gave up. He laughed, not bothering to protest when she slammed into him, soaking his apron. She looked up at him with a gleaming in her eyes and laughed as he scooped some bubbles from the sink and dumped them on her head.

"I like your hat."

Needless to say, the frying pan and spatula were left to soak before being washed, by which time nearly all the bubbles had gone - though not because of time.

Due to their bubbly escapades, the pair decided that they might as well shower. Not together, of course, even if they were together-together; they were not to that point quite yet. Ren popped in first, as his hair would take longer to dry, during which time Nora finished the dishes. She may or may not have stared a bit when he came out of the bathroom in a fresh pair of lightning-bolt patterned boxers. She was just interested in the pattern. Really. She was not staring at the lump that indicated what might have been below. Or the rest of his skin, still damp from the shower. Indeed, she was staring at his magnificent towel turban, as she had never quite gotten the hang of those things, no matter how many times he showed her.

"I'm going to fold laundry while you're in there," Ren informed her, unleashing the kraken from its towel turban.

"Ohh, right, we didn't get around to folding it, did we? Thank you, Renny!" She gave him a quick peck on the lips before skipping off towards their small bathroom, stripping her clothes off as she went, blissfully unaware that Ren's comb had ceased its movements through his hair as he observed her movements. Well, that, and because it had just found an enormous knot, which he now had to disentangle before he could fold the laundry. Once that bit of knotty fun was over and his mind had been sufficiently distracted, he padded over to the basket and set to work, setting each item into pile according to owner and type. That was, until he found one item that was nothing like the others, and was most definitely _not his_.

"Nora," he croaked, "did - did something of Yang's get in here by mistake?" _But Nora's the only one we know who wears this shade of pink…._

"What?" she yelled back, the shower shutting off. "I can't hear you! Hold on a minute!"

Ren looked around in distress, unsure if he should shove the item in with her regular bras (which were distracting _enough_ for him, thank you very much) or just put it in the bottom of the laundry basket and ask her to finish folding while he started unpacking. Unfortunately for him - or perhaps fortunately, depending on one's point of view - Nora came out of the bathroom at that moment, towel knotted in place, to fetch some clothes for the day. It was not until she had gathered all of the articles of clothing and asked him what he had said until she noticed what he was holding.

"Oh, Oum," she breathed, eyes wide.

"It - it was just in the laundry," he said, clearing his throat and avoiding her eyes. "Just - just in the laundry. Did something from Yang or - or Pyrrha get in our laundry s-somehow?"

Nora's face, by this point, matched the latter friend's hair as she snatched the item out of Ren's hands and fled to the bathroom to get dressed and finish panicking. Ren, to his credit, managed to mechanically fold the rest of the laundry by the time Nora calmed her breathing a bit and came out, this time clad in shorts and her "sloths for life" t-shirt. The pink, lacy bra with attached see-through slip was nowhere in sight.

"Thanks for folding the rest of the laundry, Ren," she smiled, determined not to mention any of the events from the previous fifteen minutes. "Wanna start unpacking?"

He nodded, handing her clothes to her and taking his own to their dresser.

The pair spent the next few hours unpacking their remaining boxes with only minor distractions when someone bent over to pick something up. Nora's little lacy thing was not mentioned again, and the pair pushed it from their minds. Once all the boxes had been opened and the contents spread throughout their small apartment, the pair put some sheets and blankets on the queen mattress and discovered that they only had one pillow.

"I guess we'll have to get one tomorrow when we go buy curtains," Ren observed.

"It's not like it matters, though," Nora grinned, plopping onto the blanket that Ren was attempting to smooth and tugging him down next to her. "I usually wind up using you as my pillow anyway."

"Who said the other pillow was for you?" He raised an eyebrow before rolling away to avoid her tickle-wrath. He failed, and found himself breathless for a few moments, trying to catch his breath while lying on his stomach. Nora gave up tickling him, instead opting to trace flowers on his still-bare back, testing the muscles beneath the now-dry skin. Her eyebrows scrunched together as she splayed her hand, noticing the tension.

"I guess sleeping on the floor last night wasn't a good idea, huh? Your muscles are all tight and tensed up. But nooooo, you said that finding the sheets was too much work, and just passed out on the little rug, and you looked so comfy that I didn't want to move you - not that I could anyway, since you were _kinda_ all tangled up with me. Speaking of which, have I mentioned how happy I am that we're finally together-together?"

"Maybe one or two thousand times over the past few years," he smiled, reaching up to drag a finger along her jawline. Her breathing hitched at the touch. "I am, too."

"Boop." She leaned down, pressing their lips together despite the awkward positioning of their necks. When they separated, she asked, "Want a massage? Your muscles are tighter than our budget."

He huffed a laugh and nodded, re-positioning himself so she could climb atop his back. She straddled him just above his tailbone and set to work, her thighs rubbing against the skin of his lower back as she rocked back and forth gently. "Let me know if anything hurts, okay?"

"Mhmm." He folded his arms and rested his head on them, waiting.

A slow grin spread across her face as she leaned forward slightly, shifting her weight so she could press the heels of her palms into his back, working the muscles like bread dough. She loved doing this, feeling the tension drain from his perpetually tired body - knowing that she was the one responsible for the change. Her hips shifted again, working the muscles in his lower back. Ren made a soft sound as he began to melt beneath her. Her hands paused as she assessed the noise, but a small whimper told her to continue. A giggle escaped her, and she leaned forward to press a kiss between his shoulder blades before beginning to work the finer muscles with her fingertips, pressing small circular motions into the skin. Ren groaned contentedly as his shoulders finally relaxed under her careful ministrations.

"Want me to do your neck, too?" she inquired, rolling her hips again.

"Mmm."

Taking his reply as a yes, Nora leaned forward and began pressing long, lingering kisses along the back of his neck, her fingers still working at its base. She _felt_ his breath hitch, and her fingers slowed, her hands moving to trace down his back. They came to rest at his sides, and she blew gently across the dampened skin before leaning down and murmuring to him, asking if he felt better now. He nodded, unable to form coherent thought, his eyelids flickering. Another laugh, a soft one this time, slipped from between her lips and into his ear.

"I really love you, you know that?"

He simply turned his head and smiled back at her, his expression answering her question all too well. The pair stayed like that for a few minutes, a bit drunk on happiness because this was real, they were alive, and they were in _their_ apartment, together-together. After some time, Nora sat up, cracked her back, and stretched, still straddling Ren.

"Ready for lunch?"

"What should we have for lunch?" Ren asked, finally pulling on a t-shirt.

Nora, her lips a bit swollen from Ren's thank-you for the massage, bounced over to their fridge to inspect their options. "We could have some more of the casserole Jaune's dad made us. We didn't eat all of it last night, and it's got all those yummy potatoes and cheese in it!"

"Sounds like a plan. I'll heat it up if you set the table?"

She beamed, and within a few minutes they were seated next to each other.

"Changing it up, lightning bug?"

"As nice as it is looking at your handsome face during the meal, I'd like just as much to be able to, y'know, actually touch you? At breakfast you were so. Far. Away!" She flopped across his lap as dramatically as possible, kicking both legs into the air at odd angles and leaning back in mock-distress. Ren rolled his eyes and flicked the tip of her nose.

"The cheese is going to solidify if you don't sit up and eat."

She simply opened her mouth. "Ahhh."

He raised an eyebrow.

"Feed me!"

"Nora, casserole is too messy for me to feed you if you're lying down. Cheesey potatoes would get everywhere and we _just_ did laun...dry…." He swallowed dryly, remembering what he had found earlier that day and desperately trying not to picture that article of clothing on the girl who was still lying across his lap.

"Maybe I should fold it next time?" Nora suggested, sitting up just in time; Ren attempted to surreptitiously scoot his chair in enough for her not to notice his slight problem.

"Implying that it would be in there next time?" _Shut up, shut up, shut up._

To his surprise, Nora shrugged, her cheeks coloring, and glanced at him with a bit of a smile. "You tell me."

Ren gaped at her, lost for words, as she shoveled a giant forkful of casserole into her mouth, cheeks now a lovely shade of brick red. _Did she - did she just -?_

Nora swallowed with some difficulty and scooped up a significantly smaller forkful of casserole and held it aloft in front of Ren. "C'mon, the cheese is gonna get all hard if you don't eat it soon."

He accepted the food and mumbled, through a mouthful of cheesy potato goodness, "Ish no' th' on'y thing 'etti'g 'hard." Fortunately - or perhaps unfortunately - for him, Nora did not understand this statement, as she would have glanced down and seen the truth. Instead, she held her mouth open expectantly, doing her best imitation of a baby bird. Chewing, Ren obliged her request, and the rest of lunch continued in this vein, with them feeding each other both casserole and innuendos.

After the remains of lunch had been cleaned and stored appropriately, Nora stood and declared that their fridge and cupboards needed art, and as they had finished unpacking their belongings in record time, they would now be making art. Ren agreed to this, as he had always enjoyed art and might have pursued it as a career, had he not trained to fight Grimm. Thus, the two wandered over to the art drawer, from whence they withdrew charcoal drawing and finger-painting supplies, both of which included copious amounts of newspaper for the floor and smocks for mess prevention. It nearly worked every time, and would have had Nora Valkyrie not been involved. Still, it was a nice thought, Ren reflected, buttoning up his smock as Nora started spreading newspaper on every flat surface she could find. Once they and the room were ready, the pair set to work with their respective mediums. Nora elected to draw a sloth with a jetpack, while Ren did a warm-up sketch of their apartment.

For the first time that day, their apartment was in near-silence; after all, even during the massage there had been the creaking of the mattress and Ren's grunts. Now only the soft glop of paint and the scritch of charcoal pencils on paper floated through the room, soothing the pair who had grown up in one another's company. Eventually, Nora began humming a tune familiar to the both of them, and Ren joined in almost absent-mindedly as he pencilled in their bookshelf. Thus, music filled the room, flitting from one folk song to the next, songs he had kept from his childhood out of sheer stubbornness, singing them whenever either of them had needed that extra bit of comfort. Now, the songs reminded them of those times, when life had not been so secure, when all they had had was each other… of how far they had come. Ren's hand stilled upon his paper, smudging the edge of the bookshelf, when Nora hummed the last few notes of the song.

"Nora?"

"Yes, Renny?" she answered, glancing over at him from her painting, acrylic clinging to her fingers.

"Thank you," he wavered, his voice breaking on the words.

Concerned, she stood and walked over to him, checking him for signs of harm - another reminder of the past, of their present. "For what?"

"For… staying. For so long. I know I'm not that great with expressing my thoughts, and… I know I wouldn't be here without you." His eraser shook, smudging the bookshelf even more.

"Hey… hey, look at me." She tilted his face up to look at her, getting green paint on his chin. "You stayed with me, too. You saved me first."

"But I ran…."

"Not when it's counted. C'mon, Renny, you're supposed to be the reasonable one here - we've saved each other so many times that I think we can just call it even. Plus, we've had this conversation like a hundred times now." She smiled, drawing a heart on his cheek with her paint-sodden fingers. "And as for staying… I think it's pretty clear that neither of us intend to leave for a while, yeah?"

"Right." He leaned up to her, giving her a soft kiss, smearing charcoal on her cheekbone when his thumb traced over her skin. "I love you, you know that?"

She grinned, booping him on the nose and leaving more paint there. "I _might_ have figured it out somewhere along the line."

A smile grew on his face, a teasing tone slipping back into his voice, "Oh, yeah? And when might that have been?"

"Maaaybe when you started glaring at other guys for even looking my way?"

"They were ogling you."

"Like you _don't._ "

"Hey, we're dating. It's kind of expected of me."

Nora heaved a large, fake sigh. "Yes, but what good is looking if that's all you do?"

"I think the hickey on your neck contradicts that statement."

"Yeah, but we've been doing that since we had roommates. And you might notice," her hands waved at the apartment surrounding them, flinging paint in all directions, "that we no longer have any." She winked, gave a prim little smile, and sashayed back over to her paint, swaying her bum for emphasis.

"You're going to kill me, you realize, with how quickly you make me change emotions. I'm not built to handle this sort of thing," he mock-huffed, returning to his drawing to fix the smudged bookshelf.

"Then I guess I'll have to make sure you only have to feel positive ones - when we're here, at least! A good dose of fear while fighting Grimm can be kinda useful, cuz it gives you that adrenaline rush. But this apartment can be for happy stuff!" She dipped her fingers into more paint and began swirling them on the paper, making a background.

"And all the places after this." He held up his pencil, measuring the angle of the bookcase in relationship to the floor.

"After?" she inquired, glancing over at him as she unscrewed the lid of a new tin of pink paint.

He took a moment to respond, taking the time to fill in the line for the bookshelf. "Well, I kind of doubt it would be easy to raise kids in such a small apartment… but that's still a ways off."

" _Kids?_ " Nora squeaked, dropping the paint, which spattered everywhere.

His pencil skittered across the paper, leaving a smudged line. "Just - if you want to. In the future. When we're ready. Eventually."

"Y-Yeah. In - in the future." She smiled then, just a small one, and picked up the paint tin and scavenged what she could from the mess she had made. "I'd like that."

"I would, too." The bookshelf was finished, as was the rest of the background; now he only had the centerpiece left to draw: her. The room descended once more into the near-silence that accompanies the creation of art. Nora finished her sloth painting, set it aside, and moved on to the next painting - pancakes, of course. She intended to paint the three great loves of her life, and had thus far only completed one. Paint slid down the paper on the easel, mimicking the dripping of syrup - which would have been a fantastic addition, had she not been working on the plate. The wielder of the charcoal, for his part, was drawing the greatest of his loves as he saw her, happy in their new home. Their _home…_ they had one now, one of their own. No one else's, just theirs; they had a place to come back to, no matter what. A place just for them.

By the time Nora had finished her paintings, Ren had nearly finished his first drawing - charcoal sketches takes forever, after all. When she moved back from her easel to start cleaning up the paint, however, he cried out.

"Not yet! I'm almost done!"

She froze and looked over to where he sat, sketching furiously with his charcoal; a smile twitched across her face. This scenario was familiar to her; ever since their team had visited Jaune's family the summer after their first year at Beacon and Jaune's little sisters had declared an art day, Ren had taken to drawing her. He had even taken a drawing class in Vale for a little while, and had been quite flustered when she had offered to be a figure model for them one day, unaware that figure models are usually naked. Needless to say, she had rescinded the public offer. "Sorry, I didn't realize I was in your drawing! How was I standing when you started on me?"

"Painting. Could you put a hand on your canvas?"

"Sure thing!" A part of her still wondered what would have happened if she had gone through with the offer and posed for his class; after all, according to Ren, her muscles made her fun to draw - and she suspected that her curves did as well, even if he was too shy to say it. Or maybe they were just easier to draw; rounded objects make dimension more feasible to represent with a two-dimensional medium. As she reflected on this and many other things, as she was Nora and her brain thus ran rapidly, Ren finished up the drawing and packed away his art supplies, but did not wash the charcoal off of his hands. Instead, he walked over to her and derailed her train of thought by drawing on a new canvas - her skin.

"Ren -"

"Shhhhh." He grinned at her then, eyes gleaming mischievously, and drew a slow, deliberate line down her cheek and neck.

She fought back a giggle, biting her lip. "What are you doing?"

"Drawing." His hand splayed against the bare skin of her arm, smearing charcoal down it in streaks.

" _I_ think you're just making a mess." Having said this, she placed her own paint-covered hand against his smock, leaving a bright, multicolored handprint over his heart. "And after insisting that we both get smocks for art time!"

"In my defense," he muttered, smudging charcoal along her cheekbone with a thumb, "the smocks do keep our clothes clean."

"We could just not wear clothes," she mumbled, catching his hand and painting a little star across the back of it.

"That would be an interesting option. Are you referring to the artist or the model?" This time, charcoal streaked down the bridge of her nose.

There was a pause in which he almost spoke again, brushed it off as a joke, while she painted swirls up his arm. But then she gave him a smile, one far from her usual - one that was almost… coy, and purred, "I think that both would be good."

And of course, just as Ren's startled brain was forming an appropriate reply -

 _Grumble-grumble-grumble._

So he laughed instead, and voted that the pair of them clean up a bit and then eat dinner, as the queen of his castle seemed to be hungry. Nora, a bit disappointed, agreed.

After they had cleaned up dinner and had hung up the completed artwork on the fridge and kitchen cabinets, Ren had decided that he was not quite done with art for the night, and as such had requested his favorite subject to model for him. Nora obliged him most willingly, even inquiring as to what in particular he would like her to wear or do for the image. While the image of the pink lacy thing he had found in the laundry danced across his mind, Ren told her that what she was wearing would be fine, and that she could just sit or lie down on their bed - he did, after all, want her to be comfortable. That, and he liked the fact that he could say _their_ bed, after four years of climbing into one another's beds in the middle of the night and countless more spent without such a luxury. And so Nora sprawled out comfortably on her side to read a book on sloths while he sketched. It was a familiar scene for them, and a comfortable one; the radio was on in the background, its music wrapping the pair of them in their own little world.

A smile slipped across Ren's face as his pencil traced the curve of Nora's hips, slowly bringing her to life in his sketchpad. How many times, now, had he drawn her? The number must be in the hundreds, if not the thousands, by now - yet there was always some new angle, some new expression, for him to attempt to capture… even if, he reflected, they marks on the paper could never fully relay the true spirit of the girl, the _woman,_ before him. The charcoal smudged as he pressed a bit too hard, as he stared, enthralled by the living, breathing work of art before him, whose beauty he had tried to replicate, futilely, too many times for him to count. He was seized by a an urge to worship her, to press his lips to every curve of her body until she knew the truth of what he had never been able to sketch. Mastering this increasingly frequent desire, he refocused on the charcoal in his hand, guiding it along the lines and curves of her body that he knew so well, yet had never fully experienced.

Nora had long since given up on reading - well, re-reading, really - her book, having realized that if she moved to turn the page, she would mess up her pose for Ren's drawing. At least, that was the excuse she made to herself; really, it was amazing how well she could lie to herself, even with her years of practice (most of which concerned her most definitely _not_ being in love with Ren, like at all). Her eyes had long since trailed up from her book and to her boyfriend's face, drinking in his drawing expression - that perfect mixture of concentration and scrutiny, almost as if he were trying to see through to her very soul. She fought the smile that wanted to appear on her face, but lost the battle; it curled her lips upward, and they separated, her teeth worrying the bottom one as she tried to return to her previous expression. If he knew she was watching him draw, he would stop; it made him overly nervous, and he always dropped his charcoal. She never wanted him to stop; she thrived off the feeling of his gaze on her, consuming her, seeking out all her secrets and spilling them on the pages of his sketchpad. It was enough to make her want to do crazy, stupid things, just to keep his gaze on her, to ensure that he would never grow bored of her - though by now, she doubted he ever would. That fact only added to her desire for him to stay close to her, with her, even _in_ her… not that he had been, with the exception of his tongue in her mouth. Perhaps that would change soon enough, now that they had a place of their own to call home. Her gaze slipped from his face to his hands, watching them work with swift, smooth motions. Oum, the things those hands might do….

The outline of her body was done, as were the details of her face, legs, and arms, mostly exposed as they were by her shorts and t-shirt. He paused a moment to refocus his eyes, as they had grown quite tired during the drawing process, and came to a rather startling realization when he once more looked upon the paper: the Nora on the page had no clothing of any sort, not even the outline thereof. Perhaps it was the fault of years of fighting by her side, or of the clinginess of her clothing - or perhaps it had been a Freudian slip of his hand. Maybe, he attempted to convince himself, it was just for ease of drawing, so he had a solid base over which to drape the fabric… even if, the voice in his head muttered, that was the exact opposite of what he wanted to do at the moment. But to have drawn her naked - Oum, what if she hopped up and wanted to see? He needed to put something on her, quickly - but he was so tired of drawing t-shirts and shorts….

His expression had changed now, she noted, working to keep her own steady. He seemed almost… flustered. Was the charcoal not cooperating and making weird streaks everywhere, or had his hand jerked at the wrong moment? Maybe he needed a break of some sort - he had been drawing for a while now, after all, and his hands were probably getting tired. That just would not do, especially if things went the way she wanted later, once night really set in and their apartment grew dark - once the plastic stars on their ceiling started to glow.

"Are you okay, Renny? Do you need to take a break?"

He jumped - actually _jumped_ \- at her words, and dropped his sketchbook, which, as his luck would have it, fell open to reveal the sketch in progress. He scrambled to pick it up, but not before Nora caught a glimpse of it.

"What… w-what am I wearing in that?" she squeaked, not sure if she wanted her suspicions to be correct or not.

"That is the outline of a tank top, I swear," he mumbled, already sketching again, perhaps just to hide his embarrassment. "It's just - just easier to start with the underlying shape."

She let out a soft hum, not entirely convinced due to the way his voice had cracked mid-sentence, and settled back into her previous pose, her gaze trained on his nervous face. He sketched and scribbled furiously, working to dissipate the suspicion but only adding to it once her eyes strayed downwards. The words fell from her lips before she was aware of them.

"I could just put it on if you like."

The charcoal pencil hit the floor and rolled away; Ren paid it no attention. His mouth was open, but no sounds emitted from it.

"I-I mean!" She blurted, breaking from her pose and flailing her arms about, desperately attempting to explain away the offer, "It - it'd be loads easier to draw it if it's in front of you, and it's not like it's a secret that I have it or anything, because you saw it already, and it's just - I bought it when we all went shopping, Pyrrha and Penny got some too, but different types, to show Jaune and Ruby - respectively, I mean, that'd be weird otherwise! So I thought it would be funny if I got one too, and it was so pretty and it was on clearance! Plus it… it came with free garters and stockings because of the sale they had going on! So it was a deal! And I-I bet you're sick of drawing the same thing over and over, so this could be a nice change and -"

"Please?" Ren rasped, having finally regained control of his vocal chords, his face coloring. "Could you - could you please wear it? For… for me?"

Her ramblings screeched to a halt, color blooming on her cheeks, and she nodded a meek yes before standing up and padding off to the bathroom to change. Ren, staring after her, wondered what, exactly, he had just gotten himself into.

Twelve minutes had passed. Nora had still not emerged from the bathroom, and Ren was getting nervous, trying to make little adjustments to the drawing in order to keep himself calm. Should he call out to her, tell her she did not have to do this if she needed more time? Or that posing in it did not need to mean that… that anything else would happen?

Fifteen minutes. Still no Nora. Was something wrong? Maybe he ought to go check on her -

 _Crash._

"Nora!" Ren dropped his sketchbook and bolted to the bathroom, praying that the door was unlocked, because they really could not afford to replace the lock so soon - and more importantly, it would let him get to her sooner. His wish was granted, and he eased the door open, careful in case she was on the floor behind it. "Are you al...right…?"

For Nora (who had indeed caused the crash by tumbling over in her haste to pull on the garters and stockings that went with the little lacy piece) was lying on the ground, looking up at him with a mixture of embarrassment and horror. "N-yes?"

Ren froze. Nora was unharmed, which was good; she was also clad in little more than garters, stockings, and the pink, lacy bra-slip which he had found in the laundry earlier. Yes, she had been going to go put it on… no, he had not expected it to fit so _well_. He knew he ought to offer her a hand to help her up, but he could not seem to get his limbs to cooperate, nor his eyes, which were roaming everywhere they should not.

Nora, for her part, was trying her very best to continue breathing. She had had a whole dramatic entrance planned out - two, actually, one for if he was facing away from her and one for if he was watching the door when she opened it. If he had been facing away, she would have draped herself against the doorway like they did in movies and call his name to draw his attention before approaching him slowly and seeing how he reacted. Had he been facing her instead, she had planned to simply walk towards him the way Yang had taught her the last time they all had had a girls' night. But no, nothing was ever that simple - and so she was on the floor, only having just finished attaching her stockings to their garters when she overbalanced. The crash had brought a worried Ren inside, and thus ruined her dramatic entrance. Granted, he seemed to be enjoying the view regardless, but this was _not_ how she had wanted him to first see her in this.

"Um," Nora gulped, staring up at him.

"R-Right! Uh, here -" Ren leaned down and helped her to her feet, effectively tugging her up against him. Granted, he was very used to the sensation of Nora's breasts - they had shared a bed almost every night for most of their lives, after all - but this was a bit… different. Yes, she was still wearing a bra of sorts, but it did not seem to offer much support, nor did it really do much to hide anything. That, plus the idea that she had _wanted_ him to see her in this outfit… well, Ren was not the only one with something pressing up against them in this embrace. Nora could not help it; she laughed. The whole situation was absurd, really; they had been together-together for so long, and they were getting all worked up over a piece of lace!

Ren, understanding, shrugged in their embrace, and cracked a smile of his own. "To the drawing pad?"

"Yes - where you can draw me like one of your French girls… again," she laughed, slipping out of his hold and sashaying - or attempting to sashay, she was far more used to skipping - over to their bed.

"Come on, lightning bug," he murmured, following after her, "you know that I don't draw anyone else, and that you don't pose for anyone else."

"Good!" She spun around, sticking her tongue out at him. "'Cuz we both remember what happened that time I showed up as a model for that class in Vale. You couldn't look me in the eye for a week!"

"That's because _someone_ ," he shot back, settling into his chair and grabbing his sketch and drawing utensil, "would not stop _staring_ at me the entire _class._ "

"Well, you made the best faces," she smirked, settling down in her previous position, tugging her lingerie into place.

"Because you showed up to pose for the nude session with _no warning_." His charcoal pencil began sketching. "You realize you nearly gave me a heart attack, right?"

"From jealousy, maybe. Don't think I didn't see you staring down the other people in your class!" She let out a big huff of air and blew a strand of hair out of her face.

Ren made no response other than to continue his sketch, detailing the intricacies of her outfit, starting with the heart connecting her stockings to her garters. Nora smirked at him but made no further comment in an effort to remain as still as possible. The sound of the pencil on the paper lulled her, helping her to stay calm while Ren focused. His eyes traced each curve of her body before his pencil duplicated the details on his paper, sketching the flowers that barely covered her, embroidered as they were on the fabric that draped her body. Not until he had to refine the shadows and details on her body did he realize that her pose was minutely different from her original.

"Nora, can you move a bit?"

"Yeah, how?"

"Um…" he glanced between her and the sketch, attempting to find the words to describe how she needed to shift. After a few moments of struggling with his short-circuited brain, he instead stood up and crossed the short distance to where she lay posing. "It'd be easier to just move you."

A slow smirk curled Nora's lips. "Okay, Renny. Do whatever you like."

"Dangerous words," he muttered, fingertips tracing the muscles in her arm, adjusting it ever-so-slightly.

Her smirk grew into a grin; one of her eyebrows quirked upwards. "They're only dangerous if you do anything about them."

His fingers stilled.

She blinked up at him, confused; her grin faded. Had she gone too far?

"...and what if I did?"

"Did… did what?" _Dear Oum. Does he mean…?_

" _This._ " A mischievous flash in his eyes was all the warning she received before he fell on the bed with her, fingers tickling viciously. A shriek of laughter escaped her lips, her legs kicking the air. One almost connected with him, and he scooped her up against him with one arm, the fingers of his other hand never ceasing their movements. Her shrieks and giggles filled the apartment; Ren's sketchbook lay forgotten next to his chair. All too soon she was breathless, her head leaning back against Ren's shoulder, exposing her neck to him. He took this opportunity to blow a raspberry.

" _Ren_!" she gasped, her cheeks aching from beaming.

"Mmm?" he intoned, his lips still on her neck, the arm holding her now slack.

"Payback time!" She twisted in his embrace, the momentum from the movement sending Ren crashing backwards onto the mattress; his yelp of surprise swiftly turned into one of laughter when Nora's fingers began dancing across his skin, mercilessly honing in on his most ticklish spots. He was rendered immobile, tears running down his face as he laughed silently, shaking with the effort of it. The sight of Ren's mouth open in a wide grin, devoid of any sound, set Nora off on her own peal of laughter; she took pity on him and stopped tickling. He let out a wheeze, catching his breath at last, and smiled up at her.

She took a moment to wonder if anyone else had ever seen that smile - the smile she had first loved, way back when they had been all alone. A grin of her own appeared while she traced the curve of his jaw, marvelling at how far they had managed to come together, both in distance and in time. He caught her hand in his own and pressed a kiss to its palm, eyes closed. They barely flickered when she leaned down and replaced her palm with her lips. They moved slowly; there was nothing to rush the pair of them - for at that moment, they were the only people in their world. His hand moved to the back of her neck while hers cupped his face; their lips curved upward, making kissing a bit more difficult, and Nora pulled back to collapse on his chest, giggling for what seemed to be the hundredth time that evening.

"Nora?"

"Yeah?" she answered, resting her chin on his chest.

"You know I love you too, right?" He tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear.

"Yup! There's no way you could've dealt with me for so long otherwise."

He shook his head at that, but continued, "And we've been together for a while now, right?"

"Three years and many months." She pushed up so that she was leaning him and rolled her shoulders, which let out a rather satisfying series of cracks. The strap of her slip slid off of her shoulder without her noticing.

"And you - you, er, bought - that -" he gestured at her outfit, unable to meet her eyes, "so does that mean you - um…"

"W-Well, yeah," she sat back atop him, shrugging and rubbing the back of her neck, "I mean, we are adults now, s-so it's not like there's any sort of taboo… but we don't have to do anything if you don't want to! I know I'm usually a bit ahead of you when it comes to moving things forward, so I'm totally fine if you're not ready for it yet! I just… it was so pretty, and it was on sale, and I just - wanted to feel sexy. We spend so much time out there fighting and training - not that that doesn't do that too! - that I wanted to see which I liked better. A-And I wanted to surprise you… I had a whole thing planned for our anniversary, but I forgot to hide it from you because I had to wash it, and…." Her voice trailed off and she forced herself to meet his eyes. "We're idiots, aren't we?"

"Yeah. Thank you for waiting and being willing to wait longer, though."

"Isn't that what you're supposed to do?" She cocked her head, brow furrowing.

"Mhmm," he hummed, hoisting himself up onto his elbows. "But if you're okay with it, I don't think we'll have to wait anymore."

"I think I like the sound of that," she grinned, leaning down to meet him.

"I thought you might."

"Renny?" she breathed, the first time their lips had parted for longer than a few seconds over the course of ten minutes or so, "I forgot to ask earlier - do you have any protection?"

"Drawer," he mumbled, somewhat dazed. "I snuck them in my underwear drawer yesterday while you were unpacking the dish soap."

"No wonder you remembered where it was," she snickered, perhaps a bit high off of happiness. "Lemme go grab 'em."

He nodded, quite pleased by his view as she walked over to the drawer. "Should I start undressing?"

Her slip swayed as she skipped over to their dresser and began rummaging through the drawer in question. "Hmm… just your shirt for now, I guess? I wanna play a bit before we get into it!"

"Sounds good." He reached back and tugged the shirt off over his head, reflecting that he had not had it on for very long that day - which was a pity, as it was his sloth shirt, but also not a pity, as Nora had been present for all of it. Perhaps he could wear it tomorrow, he mused, and so folded it and placed it on the night stand.

"You have cool boxers," she called over to him, still rummaging. "They don't make so many cool patterns for girls. Most of it is super weird. Maybe I should just start stealing yours? No, they'd probably be too big… ooh, can I start wearing them when it's just us, or as jammies? I bet that would be super cozy - ah, there they are!" She pulled the condoms triumphantly out of the drawer before withdrawing another packet. "Ooh, you got dental dams too!"

"Yeah, I figured it was safer, just in case." The sloth shirt celebrated being nicely folded by promptly falling onto the floor.

"But we don't need testing if we haven't been with anyone, right? That's what Yang said." She blinked, considering an unlikely option. "Do you… do you need to get tested?"

"Nora, we've shared a room, bed, or sleeping bag pretty much every night since we met. No."

"Fair point." Her feet made soft padding sounds on the floor as she made her way back to him, necessities in tow.

"Besides, why would I bother with anyone else?" he asked as she stepped between his legs, tossing the packets on the nightstand. "I've got you."

"And you are my sap," she smiled. "Can I be on top?"

His arms found her waist. "I was hoping you'd say that. I'm honestly a bit mentally exhausted from drawing for so long."

"We could have morning sex if you're too tired," she teased, arms draping over his shoulders.

"No," he grumbled, burying his face in the crook of her neck.

"No?"

"There is no way I could get to sleep with you in _this_ next to me."

"Well, I'd probably steal your sloth shirt to sleep in. This is a little itchy, honestly. Lace is not very friendly to skin that's used to cotton and underwire."

He grinned against the skin of her neck. "Then maybe we should get it off of you."

"Getting a bit ahead of yourself, aren't you?" she laughed, and pushed him gently back onto the bed. "I want to play first."

"And what, pray tell, are the rules of this game?" he countered, the glint in his eyes matching her own.

A cheshire smile appeared on her face. "Guess."

"You don't have any in mind, do you?"

"You were supposed to guess!" she pouted, flopping down atop him. "Then I was gonna tell you that you were right, so you could be all happy and I wouldn't have to actually think of anything!"

Air puffed out of his nose in amusement. "I thought you said you had it all planned out."

" _You're_ the one who borrows all those filthy books from Blake," she shot back, sticking out her tongue.

"At least I did research beforehand," he muttered. "You can put your tongue back in your mouth now, you know."

She did not. "Nyeh!"

"C'mon, lightning bug, don't make me do it for you." A smirk - one of a kind she had never seen before - curled up the corner of his mouth; it was a new expression, but by no means an unwelcome one. Her response was little more than smiling around her still-out tongue and blowing a small raspberry - an invitation that he gladly accepted. "Don't say I didn't warn you," he chuckled, and then did something quite apart from what she had been expecting. Rather than kissing her and using his own tongue to push hers back into her mouth, he reached up with the first two fingers of his right hand and slipped them between her lips, bringing her tongue with them. Her confusion must have shown on her face, so he elaborated. "I'm getting them ready."

Nora spluttered around his fingers, face reddening rapidly, and let out an unintelligible series of squeaks.

"W-Well, you said you wanted to - to play around first," Ren gulped, retracting the saliva-covered digits. "And since you didn't have anything in particular in mind, I thought I would just… start."

Her teeth scraped her bottom lip as she stared down at him, and then rolled off onto the mattress - and spread her legs. "Then… go ahead."

"If you want to start somewhere else -" he began, sitting up, only to be stopped by her puppy-dog eyes.

"Please?"

He grinned, broadly this time, and leaned over the side of the bed and picked something up. "You know I can't resist those eyes. C'mere."

"What do you - woah!" For Ren had scooped her off of the bed and stood up. "Renny, where are we going?"

"Well, do you remember that book I screamed at last week?"

"Vividly, that was hilarious! You also burst into tears and laughed hysterically for like three minutes. I had to braid your hair to get you to calm down! And after all that, you told me that I had to read it, but that it was the second book in the series, and Blake has the first one and - why am I on the kitchen table, Renny? And is that your charcoal stick?"

"Because there was a scene that stuck in my mind, and paint is too messy."

"We eat off of this table."

"And that is exactly my plan," he replied, and stood before her, holding the charcoal stick aloft.

"Okay, I'll bite -"

"That could be interesting -"

Nora snorted. " _Ren!_ "

"You were saying?" he inquired, trying and failing to keep a straight face.

"Why the charcoal?"

"Like I said, paint is too messy." The charcoal stick, already shedding dust, touched the bare skin of her thigh, right where her slip ended. "In the scene I insisted on reading on the opposite side of the room from you, the main couple had just accepted the mating bond. One of them had paint palettes spread out on the table, and… well, it got messy. I haven't been able to get the scene out of my mind."

"Is _that_ why you've been doing more art lately?"

"Maybe. I'll try not to get charcoal on your stockings."

"Thank you, Renny," she hummed, "but they're machine washable. Everything on me is, I made sure of it. The panties weren't, for so reason, so…."

He nodded appreciatively, this statement not fully sinking in, and then began rubbing the charcoal stick between his hands, coating his fingers in the dark dust. Once he deemed that he had enough, he placed the charcoal on the table and tugged her up towards him, his thumbs making swirls on her cheeks while their lips met.

"Did you think I was done drawing you?" he breathed when they broke apart for air, his hands dragging down her jawline to start tracing lightning bolts on her neck. "When I have so much canvas left to cover?"

Nora giggled. She could not help it; she was ticklish on her neck, and he knew that. "I'm sorry, Renny!" she squealed, when he gave her a fake-offended look.

"Here I was, trying to be all romantic and sexy," he growled, grinning, as his charcoal-covered fingers reached the base of her neck, "and you _laughed_ at me. I'm wounded."

"And you - pah! Hahaha! You did such a good job, but," she did not finish her sentence, instead dissolving into laughter when his fingers traced down her spine. Her back arched and she let out a shuddering gasp, not having been expecting the movement.

"Revenge for the revenge, I suppose?" he murmured against her neck, and nipped lightly at the skin there.

"If this is revenge, Renny," she sighed, regaining her composure, "then by all means, do your worst."

He flashed her a wicked grin, one more commonly seen on her face near pancakes. "I was hoping you'd say that." And then he lowered his mouth to her neck and sucked, his hands tracing swirls and sketching stars over her exposed skin. He felt her intake of breath through his connection to her neck while he alternated between kissing and sucking. His hands slid beneath the gossamer fabric of her slip, leaving full handprints on the skin that stretched over her toned muscles. Only then did he feel her hands on him, and pulled back to see that she, too, had covered her hands in charcoal, and had decided to join him.

"Well, you did say that paint was too messy," she teased, drawing a line of black down his nose. "So since I can't have my fingerpaints, I'm going to use your charcoal."

His approval showed through the heart he drew on her cheek before he knelt in front of her, his hands making waves down her sides.

"Are you gonna eat me now?" she murmured, smiling; her fingertips made spirals on his shoulders.

"Patience, lightning bug," he chided, pressing a kiss to her inner thigh. "I still have quite a bit of open canvas left."

"The queen of the castle thinks otherwise."

"Well, your highness," he purred, looking up at her from between her legs, "you did tell me to do my worst. I'm only following orders."

"Then I suppose I can't hold it against you, can I?" A laugh bubbled from her lips as she continued, "I could hold _me_ against you, though."

His fingers stilled for a moment as he grinned up at her, and then moved again to sketch stars and swirls over the skin between stockings and garters, and then between the garters and the slip. Hers mirrored his movements on the skin of his back, his arms - whatever she could reach. There may or may not have been a few incidents when in trying to reach more of him, she had closed her legs on his head - and there may have been some times when he used a bit too much pressure with his teeth. Both of these potential instances resulted in yelps, but the pair laughed them off and continued until Nora sat up properly, having remembered something.

"Renny, I - I forgot to shave down there," she whispered, horrified by her mistake. "I didn't think we would be doing anything tonight, so I didn't shave when I showered earlier. I -"

"I didn't trim anything either; it doesn't really matter," he stated, sitting back on his heels to give his sore knees some relief. "Besides, I can't really tell the difference, and I can - y'know - see everything, so…."

"But if you're going to - then -"

"If you're really worried about it, you can go shave, but it shouldn't affect anything. I know how to deal with a little hair, Nora." He shrugged up at her, hands still braced on her bare skin, charcoal almost completely gone.

The worry on her face melted into a smile, and she took the opportunity to lean forward and leave handprints on his chest. "Boop!"

He grinned and wrote the word on her left leg. "Boop to you, too."

"I seem to have a poet in my court!" She leaned back and promptly bumped her head on their napkin holder. Had she not realized how utterly convenient this was, she might have banished it to the dungeons; as it was, she instead grabbed a handful of them and placed them next to the nearly diminished charcoal stick before shoving the holder out of her way. "And napkins, apparently."

"Good timing," he muttered, and grabbed several, rubbing the charcoal off of his fingers. "Open up."

"What do you - oh," she smirked, and then took his fingers into her mouth again, covering them in saliva. "Mkay, sir knight, you're allowed in the gates, since you're on your knees."

An evil grin slid across his face as he yanked her forward, eliciting a yelp of surprise from his queen, and slung her legs over his shoulders. He started slowly, working his way towards her core with his mouth, leaving a trail along her inner thighs. Then his fingers and mouth descended on her, and she lost her admittedly weak sense of reality. She was fairly certain he was doing something he had read about at some point - most likely spelling out the alphabet - but could not really bring herself to do much more than half sit up, only to have one of his hands pin her hips to the table. This new, aggressive side - where had it been hiding, all that time he had spent teasing her, spreading charcoal all across her skin? A whine worked its way out of her throat, its pitch growing higher and higher as his tongue made circles inside of her, his fingers teasing her clit and folds.

"R-Re-e-en," she groaned, her breath shuddering.

He hummed against her in response; her hands shot forward and gripped the edge of the table, fearful that she might fall off from the lightning coursing through her veins. Her back arched; her legs tightened around his head, and Ren let out a muffled laugh, pushing her hips down again in response. His laughter shuddered through her like static, leaving her shaking; Ren's fingers replaced his tongue, making deep strokes in and out of her, and his tongue travelled upward to play with her clit. Her fingers tightened on the edge of the table as these combined sensations sent a lightning bolt straight through her core. His name tore from her lips with a roar.

He responded by blowing a raspberry against her clit, ruining the moment just a little - the vibrations felt fantastic to her, after all. She sat up slowly, a cheshire grin on her face, and tugged him up for a kiss.

"Grapefruit," she announced when they broke apart. "Grapefruit - and chex mix. Not bad."

He snapped one of her stocking's garters against her thigh, smiling, and quite deliberately licked his lips. A sound akin to a purr slipped out of his throat, his still-damp fingers leaving a streak on her stockings. Nora giggled and slipped her legs off of his shoulders, her fingers coming up to tangle in his hair.

"Now that you've eaten, I think it's my turn for dessert." She motioned for him to stand up, which he did willingly - his knees were sore, after all, from all that kneeling - and led him back to their bed, where she gently pushed him back onto the mattress, tugging off what little clothes he still had on as she went. The springs creaked as she crawled atop him, her head even with his groin, and lowered her mouth onto his dick - before immediately springing back up and poking at the head of it.

"What's wrong?" Ren asked, propping himself up on his elbows to look at her.

"It feels like a _marshmallow!_ " she exclaimed, squishing it just a bit, marvelling at the weird texture. Ren, meanwhile, was trying to reconcile her words with the what was actually going on at the moment - but gave up when Nora replaced her fingers with her mouth, swirling her tongue to better explore the marshmallowy sensation. "Dofen't tathe like 'un, tho'." She popped it out of her mouth, a strand of saliva connecting her to it, and continued, "Tastes more like salt. And a bit like cheese. I guess cheese is kinda like a marshmallow in texture? Maybe? Hmm…." Her humming continued as her lips encircled his shaft again, her hands joining to start pumping. Ren let out a strangled groan, his head falling back against the pillow with a soft _thump._ The room was silent save for their breathing and the gentle slurping of lips on skin.

Ren's eyelids flickered, and his fingers skated down to her hair, tangling themselves in the orange strands. His queen was kneeling before him, _atop_ him - Oum, she was so warm, so perfect - the strands slipped through his fingers, and she made a little hum of approval. The vibrations carried to him, and his breath skipped; this resulted in her laughing, enjoying the power she held over him, and the sensations from her mirth led to his hips bucking upward. Nora choked, not having expected this, but waved away his apologies for the unintentional action, taking this as an opportunity to experiment with how much she could fit in her mouth without gagging too much. To Ren's delight (but not surprise, after many summers of popsicles and frustration), she managed to fit the shaft in, and glanced up at him triumphantly. His answer was a lazy grin that melted into a groan as she swallowed around him.

"Nora, I -"

"Hmm?" she hummed, the vibrations in her throat nearly wrecking him.

"I'm about to -"

At which point she pulled away, gave him a truly evil grin, and dragged her tongue up his shaft - keeping eye contact the entire time. Ren's fists balled in the sheets as finished her ascent, and then, oh-so- _painfully_ slowly, swirled her tongue around his tip. He broke; the thin, white strands of liquid sprayed onto her face.

"Whoa!" She jolted backwards, eyes snapping shut just in time.

"I'm so - so sorry," Ren gasped, trying and failing to sit up properly due to the large amount of Nora on his lap. "I didn't mean to do that - I just… lost control."

Nora, meanwhile, was licking some of the goo off of the corner of her mouth. "Hmm. Not bad. Kinda salty, but could work."

"Work?" he inquired, finally managing to prop himself up enough to help her wipe it off of her face.

"For pancakes! It's not the same as syrup, but it could work in a pinch, and then I wouldn't get too sugar-high!" She beamed at him, jizz dripping off of her chin and onto her lingerie. Ren stared at her; to his credit, he kept a straight face for all of three seconds before bursting into laughter.

"What am I going to do with you?" he murmured, wrapping his arms around her and tugging her back to lie atop him on the mattress.

"Finally take off this slip and fuck me?" she suggested, smiling.

"That," he grinned, releasing her so she could sit up, "is a very good idea."

" _I_ thought so," she purred, reaching back and unhooking the bra. She let it slip forward along her arms until it landed in a heap on his chest, finally revealing her chest. Not that he had not seen her fully naked before - he had, when she had modeled for a figure drawing class - but that had been in a strictly non-sexual environment. This… this was different. This was intentional, sexual, and up-close; his jaw may have come a bit unhinged as she stretched, smirking, and tossed the lacy pink slip and bra onto the floor. His eyes followed her boobs' slight sway as she reached over to the condoms on the bedside table and picked one out; he found himself reaching over to stop her.

"Not - not yet. Let me look at you first."

"Didn't you get enough of that when you were drawing me?" she laughed, but complied, sitting up straighter and tossing him a wink.

"You still had a bra on then," he rasped, entranced.

"Well, I'm glad you like them. I grew them myself, you know!" She gave him a cocky grin, still laughing, and leaned forward so that they were skin-to-skin.

He cracked a smile at that, a finger reverently tracing a stretch mark. "You even have lightning bolts."

"I mean… I did sprout 'em pretty fast. And it makes sense, considering my semblance!"

"Yeah…" his gaze drifted up to her face then, and he murmured, "Have I told you lately how beautiful you are?"

"Not _nearly_ recently enough. For that, you must be punished!" Having said this, she scooted forward and squished both of her boobs onto his face.

"This is the opposite of punishment," came the muffled reply.

"Darn." She sat up and stuck her tongue out at him, wiggling. "Well, you deserved a reward, too."

Ren merely smiled, and opened his mouth to say something, when a thought struck him. He blinked several times in quick succession, shut his mouth, opened it again, and then barked out a laugh. In response to Nora's confused expression, he reached upward, took her breasts in his hands, and said quite seriously, "Boops."

Nora dissolved into giggles. Ren grinned up at her, his hands sliding down to hold her hips steady as she laughed atop him. She leaned forward then and kissed him, softly, unable to contain her smile. His reply came without haste; he returned pressure as if the pair had all the time in the world - or as if they were the last two left on it (or in their own world, at least). Her hands cupped his face as she leaned over him, nearly glowing with happiness. The condom wrapper still in her fingers crinkled against his jawline, reminding them both of what was to come next. Ren brushed his nose against hers, his eyes half-closed from the pleasure they had already shared, from the promise of more to come.

"Ready?" he murmured, fingers tracing her hipbones.

"Ready," she replied, and tore open the wrapper. She pulled out the condom, and promptly dropped it. "Ew, it's slimy! Why is it slimy? I thought they were just, like, regular plastic! Is this one bad? But the box was still in date -"

Ren fished it out of his mouth, which had unfortunately been open when she dropped the latex on his face. "Maybe they're just like that to help with friction?"

"That makes sense." she pushed up onto her knees and scooted backwards far enough that he could reach the proper appendage. "You get to roll it on, though. I don't want _more_ slime on me… at least not fake slime." He rolled his eyes at her wink as he put it on, but smiled when she scooted forward again, this time hovering above him. And stayed there.

"If it helps, I've no clue on how to start this part, either," he offered from below.

"Didn't you read a bunch of those filthy books?"

"Yes, but they were hardly about this type of sex."

"It feels weird to hear you call it that," she mused, slowly lowering herself onto him and attempting to aim. "Makes it seem really - grown-up. I know we're technically adults and all, I mean, we have our own place! But it's just… strange."

"What do you propose to call it instead?" His hands, now back on her hips, tried to help guide her.

"Booping." She hovered, his tip at her entrance.

"Seems appropriate."

Her response was wordless; she slid onto him, around him, enveloping him - and paused, waiting for her insides to adjust while she considered the sensation. It was a bit like wearing a tampon, except larger, less fabric-y - and without any of the debilitating cramps. Pleasant, warm - and most importantly, with Ren. Her hands found either side of his head and she began to move, his hands helping her hips along. There was some awkward thrusting from the both of them, but they soon settled into a rhythm not unlike the one they maintained in battle, moving separately to come together as one. She leaned forward, pressing a hard kiss to the side of his neck, and he groaned, the loudest sound of their evening thus far. A wicked smile appeared on her mouth as she nipped at his neck, their hips still pumping. Her tongue traced the spot before trailing up the column of his neck.

Ren's back arched, his hands tightening on her hips. "Nora - gods, Nora!"

She loved this new feeling of control, this sensation of power; this type of thrill usually came to her only on the battlefield. Her breathing came in pants, now, as did his; both of their chests were gleaming with sweat, toned muscle and soft curves over muscle alike. Her mouth worked on his neck regardless, marking him visibly as hers - returning the favor from earlier that night The charcoal on their skin was smeared from touch and sweat, from lips and hands and simple skin on skin. Her stockings slipped on the sheets once or twice, causing her to lose balance; Ren held her steady, one hand on her hip. The other had long since trailed upwards with soft, teasing touches, moving as if he once more had fingers covered in charcoal, as if he was working on his masterpiece. These little touches drew whimpers from her, sounds that drove him to his brink.

"Nora - Nora, I'm -" he panted, only to have her lips cover his own, and she swallowed his half-moan, half-roar as he tumbled over the edge. She relished in the sensation, but more so the way his face contorted with pleasure, his eyelids flickering. Their hips continued to move as his last waves finished and then Nora slid forward, a silent request. Ren nodded, and thus found himself between her thighs for the second time that night - though admittedly in a different arrangement, as she lowered herself onto his face. Her fingers gripped the headboard as he set to work, his tongue now sweeping her in wide circles. One of his hands came up to grab her ass while the other assisted his tongue in coaxing that same whine from her throat. He grinned against her as her legs shook, as her back arched from pleasure, as the whine in her throat reached a new pitch. A shudder wracked her body as she came, her knuckles white on the headboard as his name ripped from her throat. His hands came back down to steady her, to help her lie down beside him.

They lay there for quite some time, running their hands over one another with little concern for time; indeed, they might have had all the time in the world. Nora eventually broke their comfortable silence, her fingers further smudging the charcoal on his chest.

"Sex makes weird sounds, and we both need to go pee before we can sleep."

"Agreed. Would you care to go first?"

"Yeah. Don't fall asleep before I come back, 'kay?"

"I wouldn't dream of it," he yawned, plucking at one of her garters as she stood up.

"You'd better _not_ be dreaming!" she laughed, swatting at him before scampering off to take care of business - STIs were not on her to-do list. (Ren was, but that was another story altogether- or perhaps just more of this one.) She returned, and poked her very sleepy lover in the thigh to get him to go do the same. He complied, and then their previously scheduled cuddling session continued.

Nora traced the line of his jaw, a soft smile on her face. "How did I ever get so lucky?" she murmured, her fingers skipping down to further smudge the charcoal on his chest. "How did I wind up with you for always?"

"Someone knew we needed each other, I guess." He caught her hand, pressing reverent kisses to her knuckles, one by one. "Knew that we'd have a better shot at life with each other than without."

"I know we said this earlier, but… thank you, again, for staying. All this time…" She shifted closer to him, tucking her now-damp face into the crook of his neck. "I'd… I had never known what it was like to have someone stay with me, for so long. I never would have imagined - this. That I'd ever be able to claim such happiness."

His arm wrapped around her, his fingers tangling themselves in her hair. "I know, love. When we first were out there, alone - I thought we would die, or get separated. I never could have dreamed of something like this either… but we've come so, so far. We don't have to worry about survival anymore - we can focus on _living._ Really living. Together. Together-together, I mean."

"You've been reading too many fantasy books," she muttered, the sound somewhat muffled by his skin. "You're starting to talk like one. All mushy."

"You love my mushy."

She laughed, lifting her head to look at him. He leaned over and kissed away the last tear running down her face. A soft puff of laughter slipped from her lips, and then she pressed them to his, gently - slowly, and then drew away, her head resting at last on his chest, the way they had slept every night for years. The lovers drifted off to sleep beneath the glow-in-the-dark stars on their ceiling, blissfully ignoring the mess of charcoal they would have to clean up come morning. For now, they slept, safe in each other's arms. Pancake slight aside, it had, after all, been a very good day for the pair of them.

 **Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed it, and please leave me your comments below!**


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